Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent decision to chip in about $30 million for
a subway tunnel and a 1.5-acre public park to be built alongside a new
West Loop office building has got some Chicago residents upset.

On
Tuesday morning about 70 community activists marched to the Mayor’s
Office from the proposed site of the 45-story, $300 million River Point
development near Lake and Canal Streets. The group said they want the
city’s money used for parks in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, not in
Chicago’s thriving downtown area.

Audience members offered a range of ideas at a city hearing last night
about what to do with the site currently occupied by the 108 year-old
Fisk coal-fired power plant in the Pilsen neighborhood, which closes
this September. Some of the ideas included a park, funeral home, public market, trade school,
and even a high school sports complex.

But all these visions will
be stymied if the Midwest Generation company cannot find a buyer
willing to not just build something new but also clean up, or remediate,
the site.

“There is a huge marketing job ahead of us,” acknowledged
Jean Pogge, CEO of the Delta Institute, the Chicago non-profit in charge
of a task force Mayor Rahm Emanuel created to determine the site’s future.

There simply aren't enough rental homes available to extremely
low-income households in Illinois, according to a new report, and
housing advocates say that needs to change in order to prevent increased
homelessness in the state.

Grassroots Collaborative offers a look at the "gross misuse" of tax increment financing funds in Chicago's downtown area, explaining how it comes at the expense of some already-struggling neighborhoods.

In the afternoon, more than 100 people set their sights on the Bank of America headquarters, a popular spot for protests this week, by marching through its lobby. Community groups, along with members of the Chicago Teachers Union, want the bank to renegotiate financial deals with Chicago Public Schools that they claim are costing the eductaion system $36 million every year.

That is the number of rental units in foreclosed properties in Chicago.
In a report (PDF) issued Thursday by the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, the 17,467 rental
units came from 5,904 apartment buildings within Chicago -- which amounts
to tens of thousands of Chicagoans who were left homeless in
2010.

The banks involved in the majority of the foreclosure filings are
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, Deutsche Bank, US Bank, and
CitiMortgage.